Home Sweet Home

We finally got to move into our new house on last Friday, the coldest day of this winter. We spent the weekend and much of this past week settling in and unpacking. We are happy to say we have most of it unpacked and put away. We now are waiting on our new furniture to be delivered to complete some of the rooms. We of course have a couple of minor things to be finished and some concrete, landscape, and outside painting to be finished once spring arrives.

We are so excited to be in our new house and see it all come together like we imagined. It is really nice to have our own space. It was definitely interesting in the rental and we thank Kristen and Cory for letting us stay with them. Berkley was a little depressed last weekend with the all of the commotion of boxes and furniture but she now is really enjoying the house. She loves all the light in the house (especially since we have no curtains right now) and we find her frequently laying in the sunny spots. She has found if she sits on the front steps that she can see out the glass on the front door. She also discovered the deck this week and how if she goes down the steps off the deck, she ends up in the back yard. We have struggled with muddy paws though. We can't wait for grass! Here are a couple of Berkley pictures from this week.

Homeless for the New Year.....

I apologize for not posting any new posts lately. Our computer died before Christmas and I have not had to opportunity to upload any new pictures. I know we had told lots of you we were moving before the first of the year but that did not happen. We did however have to move out of our rental house because someone was ready to move into it at the first of year. So that leaves us homeless until the house is finished. The house is behind schedule due to our trim guys. I know this sounds familiar, yes they were the ones putting us behind initially and once again we are waiting for them. To get our certificate of occupancy, the spindles have to be done on the stairs. The trim guys are the ones responsible for this spindles. So here we sit waiting on them again. The good news is that all the other minor things are getting done before we move in because there is plenty of time to finish them why we wait on the trim guys. Hopefully the house will be done is a week or so. Until then we are staying with Kristen and when we wear out our welcome their we maybe moving onto the Eder house. I will try to get some updated pictures posted soon because has been a lot of things happening in the past couple of weeks.

Little bit of color and some other stuff......

Well a lot is happening at the house....... we still don't think we are going to make our move in date of the second week of December but we are definitely making progress. So I said a little bit of color, well actually it is a lot of color. I am very excited about how the paint colors turned out because they were stressing me out (not as much as the cabinets did but still creating stress). As you will see below, the cabinets are finished and look great. I could not be happier with them. I would highly recommend Miller Maid Cabinets if anyone is looking for new cabinets. The cabinets turned out great and the people were very nice. Later to come this week should be tile, counter tops, and much, much more.

The Office (but no Dwight).

The Dining Room.

The Great Room with fireplace and built ins.

Kitchen cabinets (pre kitchen wall paint).

Kitchen after first coat of paint.

See I was not lying about color.

Some of the Laundry Room Cabinets.

Our new Garage Doors.

Space for Rent.

We came home from the Colts game on Sunday to be greeted by a FOR RENT sign in the rental's front yard. This might be the first true sign that we are moving soon. I just hope the new house is ready on time. By the way for those of you who have not had the pleasure of coming to the rental house, Yes it does have teal shutters, and Yes it does have a teal front door, Nice huh?

Trim is done! Concrete started!

Our trim guys finally finished on Saturday after being at our house for 6 long weeks. The painters even started invading their territory this week. The painters got the upstairs and most of the basement trim started. Our gracious brother-in-law Chad came up from Posey County (see wedding pictures from previous post) with his two hard workers to pour our concrete. The weather however did not cooperate and they got rained out a couple of days but they will finish it this week. They did get our sidewalk and front porch poured. We are keeping our fingers crossed that everything else will stay on track so we meet our move-in date.

Front side walk and porch.

Hearth room

Great room

Mud room.

What does that say?

What does that banana say? Why would a banana be pocket size fun? We thought this was pretty humorous sticker for an oversized banana.

Progress is Slow.

We haven't made many posts lately because the trim process has been dragging on for weeks. The trim should have been done in 3 weeks but we are in week 5 now and the trim is still not done. They are even having to redo part of the stairs that we thought was done. Here are some updated pictures. Hopefully the drive way and sidewalks will be started next week and painter.

What is that dog doing????

Let the Trimming Begin!

House Update: The drywall is primed and the ceilings are finished. The trim guys started at the end of this week. They are working on hanging all the doors and getting the trim put up. I know these are exciting pictures but I can't put up a post without a picture.

Bedroom door hung and trimmed out.

Basement door waiting to be hung. Just like in monsters inc.

Only One Jen Alvey in the Family Now!

Mr and Mrs Chad and Jennifer Hoehn

Last weekend, Scott and I were in Evansville for the wedding of Scott's sister Jenn. Yes, the other Jenn Alvey is a married woman so I am now the only Jen Alvey in the family (unless one of Scott's brothers decides to marry a Jen). It was a beautiful day and Jenn was a beautiful bride. Scott and I wish them the best as a married couple and are happy to welocome Chad to the family.

There wedding did provide me with one very unique experience though......

The Semi Trailor

We rode in the back of a semi from the church to the reception. Yes I said a semi. I did praticipate and I embarresed to say I had fun doing it. Yet I still am not recommending this as the recommned method of transportation for a wedding party. Don't worry there was plenty of beverages on the semi and a cooler that was converted into a stereo system to provide music for our ride.

Proof we rode on the Semi.

The seating for the bride and groom on the semi was appropriately enough a "love seat".

A couple of the other lovely bridesmaids enjoying the ride.

Scott's sister Christie and our niece Cadence.

Wasting No Time Drywalling!

Drywall started on Friday afternoon abut 3:30pm and is almost done being hung and taped on Tuesday at 8pm. They are flying! We figured it would be at least a week or two on drywall but it has been more like 3 or 4 days. Here are some pictures of the rooms. It really looks like a house on the inside now.

Arched half wall in the basement.

View of the great room from the seond floor.

Ceiling in the office.

Hearth room off of the kitchen.

What can you say?

Well the Alveys are excited to see the NFL season start but it didn't exactly start the way we wanted. We had a great tailgate party prior to the game with about 25 people which was an awesome way to start the season but the game was horrible. Good thing we had some beverages prior to numb the pain. Above is the view from our seats. We are at the top row of our section so that means there is no one behind us to spill beer on us. Now Scott just has to make sure I don't spill beer on him. We are slowly making friends in our section. We had such a great group around us the last couple years and this year everyone is much more reserved, less willing to talk to the drunk girl, and slow to chant cheater, cheater, cheater!

Bubba is back for another season!

Mom and Dad relaxing in the sun with a ice cold beverage!

Kristen and Scott playing corn hole. Kristen is off crutches but not completely off the DL.

These guys obviously are enjoying the perfect combination of beverages and direct sun light.

Now for the Inside!

The Brickers finished the outside and the drywall guys wasted no time at all. They had the truck pulled up yesterday after calling Jeff 5 times wanting to know when the drywall was going to be delivered, pulling the drywall off the truck, and throwing it on the walls I think directly from the truck.

After 1 day of work, the basement is drywalled, most of the second floor and the master suite is done. They don't waste any time and they work long days. B couldn't even believe how much they had done. She had to check it out herself and she could figure out why she couldn't walk directly through the walls anymore.

Jen is now getting nervous because there is no longer, "well they still have to drywall before you have to decide that." All of the decisions are now and we are starting to have to make final decisions on what we want for a lot of things. So many decisions and so little time.

Pittsburgh

PNC Park is probably the neatest park I have been to and I am a huge fan of the new Busch. I think whoever designed Busch could have got a few pointers from Pittsburgh. Everything is open and it has a very small ballpark feel to it. It sits right on the rivers and looks directly into downtown. There concession stands have more options than I think I have ever seen at a stadium. I couldn't decide what to eat or drink (Beer of course but what kind).


We walk up to the stadium and there are restaurants attached to the outside of the stadium, bars all around the stadium and wonderful statues of Pittsburgh greats (yes there are a few) to take pictures with. The restaurants are something I have never seen before in a ballpark.

Then we walk into the stadium and they are so gracious to give us Willie Stargell comemorative plates that Jen so proudly displays. As we get to the bleachers, the Brewers were such gracious guests and wanted us to feel welcomed, that they almost hit us with a homerun in batting practice. Unfortunately we were too distracted figuring out where we were going that we missed it. Pittsburgh were such good hosts that they let the Brewers beat them 11-3. I would love to watch baseball in PNC Park every night but not Pirates baseball.

Overall Pittsburgh was a neat city. We didn't know what to expect but most of the people were very nice, except Fred, and they tolerated drunk Ben. We ate some great food on "The Strip", saw all of the street markets, and had a siting of "Buffalo Ben"

We had fun and as much as it pains me to say it, I would recommend visiting Pittsburgh to anyone. It's funny when you have your favorite sports teams you hate cities because of their sports teams and Pittsburgh was one of those for me. I no longer hate the city just the teams and their obnoxious fans. I will definitely go back but next time I will go to watch someone I care about.

Brick, Stone, and Insulation!

Lots is happening at the Alvey house this week. The stone is almost all the away across the front of the house. The brick is finished on the back of the house except for on under the hearth room and it well on its way on the sides of the house. The insulation started today and our new front door framed was installed (the last one was wrong-arched at the top instead of square). Hoepfully by the end of the week the brick and stone will be finished. It is really starting to come together and looking like a house.

Back of the house and back of the inspector.

Insulation in the kitchen and hearth room.

Our much needed dumpster! Our neighbors will be happy.

Side of the garage with stone and brick complete!